Detroit Tigers starting pitcher Justin Verlander heads into the dugout after giving up four runs to the Chicago White Sox in the fourth inning of a baseball game Thursday, July 25, 2013, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)

It's July 27, and four of the five pitchers in the Indians' starting rotation have a better ERA than Justin Verlander.

Think about that.

Maybe the biggest factor in the Indians' chances to win the Central Division have less to do with what's going on with the Indians and everything to do with what's going on with the Tigers.

This just in: Justin Verlander is human.

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In a 7-4 loss to the White Sox on Thursday, Verlander lasted six innings, threw 103 pitches and gave up seven runs and 11 hits to the worst offensive team in the American League this side of the Houston Astros.

This was not an isolated drubbing.

In his last four starts, Verlander is 1-3 with a 5.96 ERA. In those four starts, opposing batters are hitting .308 against him. In his last eight starts, he is 2-4 with a 4.97 ERA.

Verlander has led the American League in strikeouts in three of the last four years, but he has struck out five or fewer batters in each of his last eight starts.

Perhaps most telling of all: Right-handed hitters are batting .289 vs. Verlander. In 2011, when he won the American League Cy Young and Most Valuable Player awards, right-handed hitters hit .215 against him.

This year, his walks plus hits per innings pitched (WHIP) is a career-high 1.409. In 2011, it was 0.920.

Over the last two years, according to ESPN, opposing batters hit .233 vs. Verlander's fastball. This year: .306.

Overall this year, Verlander is 10-8 with a 3.99 ERA, so it's not like he's suddenly turned into Wil Ledezma. Still, Indians starters Zach McAllister (3.57), Justin Masterson (3.60), Corey Kluber (3.69 going into his start Friday), and Scott Kazmir (3.96) all have better ERAs than Verlander -- and it's almost August.

In Verlander's award-winning 2011 season, the Tigers were 25-9 in games he started. This year, they have a better record in games he doesn't start, 45-34 (.570), than in games he does (11-11).

That said, even with Verlander headed for one of the "worst" years of his career, the Tigers' starting pitching ERA of 3.70 is easily the best in the American League.

The Tigers also have the best hitter on the planet (Miguel Cabrera) and the best hitter hitting behind the best hitter on the planet (Prince Fielder), the starting pitcher for the American League in the All-Star game (Max Scherzer), and Victor Martinez, who is over his knee injury and coming on like a freight train, hitting .388 in July.

As the Indians proceed through the final days before the trade deadline, and through the final two months of the regular season, Verlander's struggles may turn out to be more interesting than impactful in the AL Central race that Detroit is still expected to win.

The inclination is to say the Indians need to trade for another starting pitcher. But consider this: the combined ERA of Masterson, Jimenez, Kluber, McAllister and Kazmir is 3.86, which would be fifth-best in the AL. However, the Indians' overall starters ERA of 4.24 is bloated by the trainwreck starts of Trevor Bauer and Carlos Carrasco.

The Tribe's Big Five still needs to pitch deeper into games to take some strain off an overworked bullpen that also lacks a second left-hander. But there's talk of bringing Danny Salazar back from Columbus and using him as a reliever, which might help solve the lack of a second lefty reliever. Salazar, a right-hander, has held left-handed hitters to a .226 batting average at Columbus this year.

Maybe the Indians' best use of a second-tier minor-league prospect in a trade would be for a hitter, because they are developing a couple holes in their lineup.

Lonnie Chisenhall would have to hit .400 to counterbalance his weak defense and platoon-level offense (can't hit lefties) through the pressure of a late-season division race, and how much longer can the Indians wait on Mark Reyonlds?

Reynolds went into Friday's game hitting .214, which ranked 86th out of 88 players who qualify for the AL batting race. You could live with that in exchange for some home runs and RBI. But since June 29, Reynolds has one RBI and no homers.

The other option would be to ride out this roster the rest of the season and see what happens, which wouldn't necessarily be the worst approach in the world, according to Indians general manager Chris Antonetti.

"I feel good about the group of guys we have here," he said. "I'm encouraged by what our (starting pitchers) have done in the last month, and I think our defense on this last trip was more of a blip than a trend."